What passes for self-described “conservative” these days believes that there is an order to the universe where some are the deserving and some are the undeserving and that helping those in need is still conditional on that. So the deserving vulnerable should be “helped” with incentives to the family caregivers, the undeserving vulnerable who may require direct care from public services, must not.
And what’s hitting them is that faced with funding cuts, states are trying to protect the core program to give basic health care to the poor, and backing down on high-dollar-low-numbers programs such as hers.
But what do these “conservatives” believe ought to happen to vulnerable people who do not have someone else to provide / care for them or when the most provision they can muster is simply inadequate?
What is the “conservative” answer to that problem? Is it “Sucks to be you, go starve or die under a bridge.”?
To clarify, the historical Conservative view was to give everyone the same opportunities like the best K-12 education in the world, affordable college, a job where raises and promotions are based on a meritocracy, &c. If you choose not to take advantage then that’s on you. Agree or disagree with that philosophy all you want and consider the historical context of the time, but current conservatism is
Opportunities for those that agree with my political/religious/social views are acceptable.
I gots mine so everyone else can fuck off.
Reminder that I thoughtfully created a Leopard hijack thread. The rants here are topical there.
There’s also a thread for substantive discussion in GD, should your rant be sufficiently adaptable:
More Leopard news from a couple of weeks ago in the Economist. Background: Alligator Alcatraz is an immigration detention facility paid for by the state of Florida to the tune of $245 million. It was constructed by a firm with no experience in building such facilities and could very well become a death trap during hurricane season, depending in part on whether FL has made sufficient evacuation plans. A few Trump supporters are not happy. Emphasis added:
In Miami, where 70% of people are Hispanic, the deportation theatre is not going over well. Many expected the Trump administration to pick up gang members, but not cleaning ladies and Uber drivers. “Arbitrary measures to hunt down people who are complying with their immigration hearings” is “not what we voted for”, the co-founder of Latinas for Trump wrote on X in June. Conditions at Alligator Alcatraz resemble prisons in places their grandparents escaped. “Pick them up, throw them out, but don’t mock them,” one veteran Republican says of criminal immigrants. Another party strategist who “loves everything else Trump is doing” wonders how a country known for taking in “the poor and huddled masses” can also be “dragging them out to be tortured in the Everglades”.
A majority of Americans agree. In recent polling 52% said the government is trying to deport more people than they expected; 57% opposed building new detention centres. Last month Mr Trump’s net approval rating on immigration flipped from positive to negative.
She also noted that a plan to develop the site on which the jail was built into a massive tourist airport was rejected in the 1960s because of the harm it would have caused the the land and delicate ecosystem.
And that rang a bell for me. Turns out I’ve seen two youtube videos (Mentor Pilot and Half As Interesting) about it:
